How to have light move faster than C

The BBQ Pit
402

It supports my case in that Special Relativity is contradicting it’s self.

These are a sign that it is a theory in flux, not settled science.

My argument is 1: Special Relativity can’t handle orthogonal communication, vibration, rotation as these things result in paradoxes which it has no defence to.
2: Special Relativity can explain the constancy of the speed of light in an orthogonal direction, and in the direction of motion as a 2-way measurement, but it can not explain how the speed of light could not be greater than C if your velocity adds, this is instead accepted on faith.
3: Any attempt to apply Special Relativity differently to rotation where an absolute reference frame and “propper time” are brought in under SR, but not to linear motion fails, as in reality there no perfectly linear motion thanks to the influence of gravity.

Basically there are things SR can’t do, it can’t explain how 2 observers in different inertial frames but the same(ish) location can both observe a photon to be present in that instant while both agreeing the photon is moving at C.
If both detect it then the photon could not be moving at C in both frames in many cases.

It is not the best fit to the evidence and it requires many impossible things to be taken on faith.

403

It doesn’t. It really doesn’t. Just as relativistic motion doesn’t invalidate newtonian motion, your link doesn’t invalidate SR.

Flux is the wrong word, and I’m not entirely sure what “settled science” even means.

If you replace “SR can’t” with “I can’t” then I think the quoted would be fairly accurate.

404

You’re posting stuff without reading it again, aren’t you?

Paper 1 is some mathematicians saying that if we ever figure out how to move faster than the speed of light, here are a couple of sets of equations that don’t totally break our current SR-type assumptions.

Paper 2 is from Physics Essays. They’ll publish pretty much anything, including stuff from Amrit Sorli (like you linked to). Here’s the About the Author blurb for his book, The Physics of Now: Eternity is NOW:

Amrit Sorli is an independent researcher. His main contribute to Physics is new interpretation of time: time we measure with clocks is real, but it has only a mathematical existence, namely time is a numerical order of change that run in a 3D quantum vacuum of Planck metrics which itself is timeless. Time is not its 4th dimension. Emergent time as a “duration” of change is a result of the measurement done by the observer. The duration of change does not exist without measurement. Universe does not run in time, on the contrary time is a numerical order of universal changes which run in a timeless quantum vacuum. Eternity is NOW.

What he has to say has as much to say about SR contradicting itself as what you say.

405

Let me rephrase that: he is as much a part of the science capital-E-Establishment as you are.

406

That’s the thing SR was created to explain. Yes, both observers do detect the photon, at the same point, and both of them see it moving at c.

That came first. That was the actual physical observation. SR exists to explain it. People actually do see the photon that way.

You’re not denying SR: you’re denying observed reality.

407

You have no idea what best fits the evidence because you don’t do math. You don’t speak the language of physics. You have no idea what’s impossible.

408

We’re being unfair and elitist. Science should be open to everyone, and if they can’t work the problems, then their gut feelings should always be taken as equal, in all ways, to the calculations of the mathy minority.

Of course, my gut feelings are that mythoughts is a lost cause…

409

Pretty much nails it. This was obvious about mythoughts a long time ago. He either doesn’t realize or doesn’t care that the observation the speed of light is observed to be constant in all inertial frames predated SR. Or the observation of a lack of any sort of lumineferous ether.

That’s the pattern.

  1. Fail to understand SR on its own terms
  2. Determine what “reality” should look like based on “common sense”
  3. Ignore what reality actually looks like
  4. Declare SR is wrong based on insane mental model instead of observed reality

Though I’m kind of glad he’s abandoned the idea there is a cabal of scientists who strike down anybody who doesn’t tow the line. For chrissakes, the original Michaelson-Morley experiment was considered a “failure” since it didn’t detect the lumineferous ether.

Well, yes, of course. There’s no way of salvaging a head so firmly rooted in the lower GI tract.

But it has been a treat seeing posters - even admittedly amateur physicists - lay out the evidence so very well.

410

And learning stuff, too! That’s the real reason I pay attention to these threads. In the last one, a year or two ago, I learned of the Sagnac Effect; in this one, I learned that distance is a factor in GR time dilation. Cool beans! I can’t wait till the next one!

411

Most/all replies recently have been off subject blather… So I have not replied yet.
And not sure I should.

But a thought came to me.

Suppose we release a photon, the frequency of the photon depends on our motion, if we are moving toward the source it will appear blue shifted, if we are moving away it will appear red shifted.

If we are moving in such a way that the photon should be length contracted we might find it’s frequency to be raised.

But all of these are dependant on the relative motion to the photon, and if we were to look at multiple photons from the same source from different directions, some would face length contraction, some wouldn’t, some would face red and blue shifts, but some wouldn’t.

So let’s propose that we can remove those factors, and instead let us pretend for clarity that they do not occur, or even if they did we could easily calculate their magnitude or use competing observations of other photons from the same source until these various effects are eliminated from consideration.

So now we have one effect left, time dilation.
If a photon is seen by a time slowed observer, the apparent frequency of the photon should be raised.

So if ignore all the other effects, we would have to come to the conclusion that any motion we gain, the higher frequency the photon should appear, and that while in practice this is included in a pile of other effects, it is still present.

What is interesting is that we are used to the concept that light has no preferred frame, and there is no frame in which time runs fastest.

And yet in this case, if the photon is released at an exact known frequency from a source, any motion which contributes to time dilation relative to that source will see the frequency raised.

This means that there is one frame where the frequency is at it’s lowest, the same frame the photon is released from.

Any other frame the photon will appear to have a higher frequency.

This tells us that it IS discoverable which frame is genuinely preferred (still) and which ones are moving, at least with respect to the photon emission frame.

This means that a photon does carry something discernible about the frame it came from.

With great difficulty this should even be discoverable from a single photon, if it’s frequency is read over a large range of relative velocities, there would be a change in angle on the graph where motion that leads to further red-shift should become less effective as the frequency is raised by the time dilation.

412

Well, no, not quite. Photons move at the speed of light. Photons don’t do “length contraction.” The Lorentz equations go to zero. A photon has no “length” in the direction of travel.

Length contraction and time dilation only apply to objects moving through space at speeds lower than the speed of light, and only objects with “zero rest mass” can accomplish this. If you try to move a bullet, say, at the speed of light, the Lorentz equations blow up; it requires dividing by zero.

Nope. Different effects. Doppler frequency shift is not actually a relativistic effect. (Well, it is when the photon climbs out of a gravity well, but if we’re just working in flat, empty space, frequency shift is not relativistic.)

It is commonly said that photons don’t “experience time” at all. For the photon, if it could be said to have a point of view, zero time elapses from when it is emitted to when it is absorbed. To the photon, it’s like stepping into a Star Trek transporter. One nanosecond, it’s emitted here. The next nanosecond (from its point of view) it’s absorbed there – and “there” might be a million light years away.

So…nope. Not a problem under relativity.

413

This was a day or so late, but it’s up now. (The links in zweisamkeit’s post don’t actually have a link to the front page; that’s what I linked to.) I’m starting on the University-level course myself. There’s also a page of SR questions answered by Greene in short videos. Enjoy (and thanks, zwei!)

414

Trinopus answered seriously and pretty well, so I won’t bother with that part.

But seriously, at this point, learn the freaking math. You are trying to argue against relativity without actually understanding it. That’s pointless. Unless you actually understand what relativity is, you can’t actually say what it implies or not. In fact, your statements about what relativity says have been consistently wrong in part or in total on several occasions.

That’s not entirely your fault. Explanations and analogies can only go so far. With any physics topic and not just relativity, full understanding only comes from actually understanding the underlying math. But it is 90+% your fault if you choose (and yes, it is a choice at this point) not to at least not to acknowledge there’s some math there you aren’t getting.

That’s why we respect people like Richard Feynmann, Isaac Asimov, or Stephen Hawking. They make high-level conceptual understanding much easier for the layman. That is a lot harder than most people realize. But such high-level conceptual understanding is an inadequate substitute for deep and sustained study, especially when you wish to argue against something backed by such an incredible amount of physical evidence.

One of my (less admirable) hobbies is occasionally replying to folks who claim elementary proofs to some very deep mathematical questions - like claims of successful proofs of the twin prime conjecture, the Goldbach conjecture, the Riemann hypothesis, and simple proofs of Fermat’s Last Theorem. Other than their (usually obvious) failure, one thing is quite common among the people who make such claims - they don’t understand and are incapable of understanding where they fail but expect infinite patience from those who do.

It’s not a bad thing to question the validity of our current understanding of how the universe works. But it IS a bad thing to continue to question it blindly while simultaneously claiming it is unnecessary to possess the tools with which to properly understand the theory.

415

I’m tempted to ask you to share some of the obvious failures, but this thread probably isn’t the place for it.

416

And the Cantor Diagonal Proof. For some reason, this really attracts the loonies. (We had one in Great Debates not long ago.)

I spend way too much time reading crank web sites. It’s a dead waste of life’s irreplaceable hours, but I find it hideously compelling. It’s like reading Creationist literature. It’s not as bad as skin-cutting or scarring or branding, but it has the same self-tormenting futility.

And, yes, the common thread is the lack of comprehension of what the actual science and/or math really says. They always present their own distorted imaginings, and then rebut that. It’s the strawest of straw-man debate!

I once had a nice chap yak on to me on the phone for about an hour with this nifty new mathematics he’d discovered, where – no, really, it works! See, all you have to do – where you eliminate the number “nine.” :confused: My best guess is that someone taught him about “casting out nines” and he took it too literally. I gave him an hour of my time, but, in the end, communication was not obtained.

417

I was not referring to it’s motion as such, but the motion of the observer.
Never the less this is beside the point, I don’t disagree with you on this point, but I formulated the argument in reply to someone else.

At any rate it only makes this easier.

Yes, and the observer is.

Photons have a frequency, if your clock is slowed and the photon is unaffected, you will find the frequency of the photon is raised.

Actually the same applies to length contraction too, if the photon is unaffected but your ruler is shrunken the wavelength of light will seem to grow.
But the latter is besides the point.

Indeed, i wasn’t saying it was.

Yes, but the matter DOES become effected by relativistic influences.
A slow clock would find non-effected photons to be at a higher frequency.

418

Which has been shown to make no difference. A moving observer and a stationary one (all per various inertial frames of reference) will see the photon moving at the same speed.

And, yes, they will see the photon at different frequencies – red-shifted or blue-shifted – on the basis of their motion. But, again, that isn’t a relativistic thing; that’s the nature of waves and motion. The Doppler effect of a car horn or a fire-engine’s siren isn’t relativistic. It only has to do with waves being emitted from an object in motion.

ETA: I’m being a bit sloppy here. This applies to a “source of light” and not to a single photon. For our purposes, a single photon is not observable until it is absorbed, at which point it ceases to move at the speed of light, or at any speed at all. Its motion is changed into some other form of energy, either the bumping of an electron to a higher energy state, or simply heat energy in the substance that absorbs it. None of this is important here, but I wanted to be a bit more accurate than I had been.

419

But we aren’t talking about speed here!
We are talking about frequency!

You say the photon if not effected by IT’s motion.
But matter is effected by it’s motion, it’s clocks run differently.

The point is precisely that photons’s do not change while matter does.

If you want to point out that this creates paradoxical problems, I’d agree.

Consider we have a clock and EM detection device that is vibrating so quickly it’s clocks are time dilated to us, as we shine a given frequency we observe that it’s clock runs more slowly.
So if we shine light of a given frequency into it, how could it detect the same frequency with a slow clock?

I am not saying light is effected by travelling at C, I’m saying that the matter is effected and the light isn’t.

Of course it isn’t. Never said it was.

420

I started a thread on this here. It’s not a complete list by any means (sometimes it seems there are more cranks than stars in the sky), but it has some of my personal favorites.

421

I can’t follow your little thought experiment here, but it doesn’t fit with reality or the thought experiments of anyone actually understanding light and relativity. In the real world, in frames moving away from where the photon was released, the frequency is lower. There’s no frame where the frequency is at its lowest, and it certainly isn’t the one where the photon was released.